7:34 - Our homes are becoming more energy efficient. More and more builders are using green energy to make homes more efficient and lower utility bills.

11:14 - Online retail is changing our homes. Just recently, Amazon announced a new program allowing delivery folks into homes to deliver packages. Additionally, online grocery shopping is fundamentally changing our approach to shopping, freeing us up to spend more time at home.

15:54 - Digital feedback to realtors and developers will craft the way homes are built in the future.

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It's time for The Savvy Realtor podcast. I'm Walter Storholt alongside Angie Cole the owner and broker in charge of A Cole Realty serving you throughout the Triangle teaching you about the ins and outs when it comes to buying or selling a home. You can find the team online by going to A Cole Realty dot com that's A C-O-L-E Realty dot com or by calling 9 1 9 5 7 8 3 1 2 8. That's 9 1 9 5 7 8 3 1 2 8. And now it's time for one of the top real tours in the Triangle. Angie Cole and The Savvy Realtor podcast this part of the show.

We're going to call in the news where we take a look at some of the recent articles that have made headlines in the real estate world and get Angie's perspective and take away on some of this interesting informations a lot of times we uncover just some different opinions and findings and statistics and things like that that might tell us a little bit about what's happening in the real estate world and how it might relate to you. ANDREW The first article the headline was newbie buyers make smaller down payments. This is from the down payment report. This basically showed that recent stats reveal that 60 percent of first time homebuyers put down 6 percent or less on home purchases which is a decrease from past year.

I think a lot of that has to do with the interest rates being so low. You know a lot of first time homebuyers they go into the market feeling that they need to put 10 to 20 percent down on a home. But that's not true. And you know it's great when speaking with a lender to look at a good faith estimate and kind of compare apples to apples because for example you could put 6 percent down or you could go and put 10 percent down but really look at the difference in the mortgage payment. There might not be that big of a difference. And so I feel like a lot of first time homebuyers are going the route of putting less money down because they're taking advantage of the low interest rates so their payments are still lower. And then just keep in those excess funds for whatever is needed in savings maybe to decorate the home. But I feel like that's why many first time homebuyers are going with less money down.

It's interesting that you mentioned that because the stats in this article also show kind of something that you would think would be counterintuitive that first time homebuyers as a whole are making up a much smaller percentage of overall purchases. So in fact I do remember the exact number from the article but it was well below I mean it was not just an anomaly of 1 or 2 percent it was a significant a good 10 percent maybe something like that difference from previous years from the past or from historical norms. So you've got the ones who are buying homes are putting down less money but maybe it's that mentality that the ones who don't realize you can put down such little they're waiting and waiting and waiting to finally have enough to put that 10 or 20 percent down.

Right. I think it can be. Yeah some of them not understanding that you maybe could put less down or maybe get even a hundred percent financing. There's a lot of different loans out there. So they had this mentality of thinking that they believe they must put the larger portion down. Also I know there's a lot of first time homebuyers who have high student debt so maybe they just can't qualify for homes because they had this access of loans from their college that are adding up and that debt to income ratio can really come into play. I have a feeling that may be a big reason. Yeah I think it is also you know the amount of baby boomers that we have you know the mass not mass majority but baby boomers are at an all time high of the population. So baby boomers are making up a large portion of the people that are buying or selling a home versus the first time homebuyers in our market. I know from working a market it can really be different in the Triangle market. There's so many people moving into the area so many jobs. You know we do find a lot of first time homebuyers so I can't say that that's as true for our particular area but we're looking at statistics across the U.S. so. But yeah I would say a lot of it has to do with being more baby boomers. You know just in the world in general you know a lot of first time homebuyers feeling like they need to put a larger percentage down and they don't have that money to do so so they don't even think of the option. They don't think that they can even buy. And then also they are debt they're debt to income ratios maybe are too high so maybe they're not able to even afford a home at the moment.

You bring up a great point though of the importance of the market that you're in and realizing that just because you see something on the national news or something that is kind of detailing Oh this is the big trend right now doesn't mean it'll always apply to our area.

Right. We um I actually I connected with a buyer this past week who I've actually spoke with her. I think it was a good two years ago and she reached back out to me and she was like Angie. They just tried to increase or they are going to increase my rent again and increase it up to fourteen hundred dollars a month. That's a big rental payment. I mean obviously you can buy for less than that. Now you've got a mansion you're renting. Yes. I mean that's an expensive rent but that's what happening. You know she said she has been in the same home for 10 years now and every single time they just you know keep increasing the rent and she's like You know it's time for me to buy I want to buy but I'm scared because my credit's bad. And so you know next step I say well let's connect you with one of our preferred lenders. Let's see what they can do. Maybe it's not as bad as what you believe it is. Come to find out. Her credit score actually is not that bad. She's completely fine. We now have a pre qualified. She's now working on that one of our buyer specialists to purchase a home so that you might think that you cannot buy a home at this time but it never hurts to take just a moment and speak with one of our lenders to really truly see.

So if you're thinking about buying and you're one of those that you're a little scared because you're not sure of your credit score your debt to income ratios if you have enough money to put down on a home for your downpayment I would suggest that you speak with one of our lenders and we work with Natalie again with on Q Financial. He's amazing and he has a mortgage app that you can download to your smartphone. And with that mortgage app you can look at interest rates you can get pre qualified you know you can speak directly with Ned. There's just so many tools and features that you can do with this mortgage app which you can download to your smartphone. And so to do that you can text the word lending to the phone number 5 5 5 8 8 8. Once again on your smartphone to download our mortgage app which is provided by Ned Ligon with on key financial. Just text the word lending to the phone number 5 5 5 8 8 8.

Again all you have to do is send a text from your smartphone to 5 5 5 8 8 8 in the message field just put the word lending LPN Diane G. Lending. Put that word into the message field and then send it to 5 5 5 8 8 8. What will happen is you'll get a text write back from us. It will have a link where you can go and download that mortgage app again get a pre qualified there get the latest news and information about what's happening in the mortgage world latest rates all that kind of stuff. And learn more about Ned Ligon and his team one of the preferred lenders that Angie works with on a consistent basis. You can text the word lending to the number 5 5 5 8 8 8 to get that lending app. So I thought that was an interesting article about new buyers making up that smaller percentage of buyers total but also doing smaller down payments as well. Interesting to hear your perspective on that. Angie another interesting article from the last couple of weeks. This was from the real tour mag said that technology is changing residential design and it gave three major ways that that's changing and I just find this really interesting.

One way it looked at it was that energy was really going to impact some of the physical changes you're going to see in new builds as time goes on here and into the future with you know the way technology is changing in the way that energy demands are changing. One great example was they said in the past homes were built to kind of lean away from the sun or face away from the sun or at least not have the sun kind of beating right through you know the main part of the home with the where the windows were because you wanted to eliminate cooling costs or maybe it was the reverse in a warm area you wanted to be in the sun to have heating costs be lower in the summer in the winter either way. Now they're saying well if we start doing more and more solar panels it's going to change how we design homes and pointing them in the direction of the sun because we want to absorb all that sun and you know there are lots of other little ways they were pointing out that energy demands might change things.

Yeah. And I see that this is ongoing with new builds. They have the energy star qualified you know and that's ever changing. You know what is considered to be green and energy star you know those levels keep increasing to be within you know that demand to have those you know lower utility bills and to stay energy efficient which is driving these builders to build this way. It's kind of like building codes building codes are ever changing you know because as the years go on we realize that hey for example the gas line you know needs to be bonded back in the day. That wasn't a concern. You know same thing with the energy efficiency. It's you know what can we do what can we tweak to make our utility bills lower. So it's important it's going to be ever changing with the market.

We're going through the same thing. Speaking of building codes looking to replace our water heater and we have to get it up to code as well it's sitting on bricks that are kind of falling away. It's like you have to have a concrete pad. Now instead of the brick patio we've got to upgrade that.

So you know it's similar always changing all it as it is but it's I mean it's for the better. But you know it's important that builders they keep up and they stay ahead of the game you know because if they don't. Another builder is going to beat them out and have all these cool features to sell. You know if you have a buyer walking through one builder's home versus another and if the other one can say hey based on how we build our homes you know we can save this amount of money. I mean that's important.

Our builder is starting to put in things like the first thing I think of when it comes to energy and technology merging is the thermostat and the smart look at my stats are they putting those in now as standard.

Yeah and I'm drawing a blank on the builder who we just toward their homes recently but they now every home come standard with that feature with the thermostat then lights. You can even connect it to your light blinds and shades and it's all from your phone. It's all very smart home. That's really neat.

That seems like the kind of thing that would be tough to upgrade a current home to. I mean that's a lot of changes to make that I make in a new home. That's going to start to make new builder more attractive because right features.

Yeah. They have you know you can look kind of like your cars. You know how people they can start them. Yeah. From the remote start. Same thing with their home. It's you know hey you can do everything from your phone. You can set the alarm. You can you know unlock your door. It's just some neat features and things that you can do.

You can even have it so that when you get within like a mile of home it'll go ahead and kick on anything. It knows you've come within a mile of the home. Yeah. It'll go ahead and kick on the air.

The heat to adjust accordingly. Yeah it's just it's once again keeping up with the times. Yeah. You know and you have to do those items you know to stay ahead of the market and make your product most appealing.

All of this pretty much you know kind of comes back to technology of course but that's how the energy demands and technology sort of merge. Retail is another thing that they pointed out in this article where we're moving into this world where you can have almost anything delivered to your home. Amazon recently made news where they're going to start you can give them a key basically and they can just walk into your home and deliver the power to center down again. Oh yeah. So they're going do a new program. It's not in our area yet. OK. Where you can walk in. You basically give the delivery guy a key and then when he has a package instead of leaving it on the front porch he just opens the door sets it inside and locks the door behind him.

That seems like a headache. It seems like it was just seems like a disaster waiting to happen like OK misplacing key. I mean you know our dog would never allow a delivery man right. I mean what if you let them aloud and they get lost. I mean yeah. You just you know you never know who's truly in your home. We love our delivery guy but you just can't trust everyone did it. Amazon just purchased Whole Foods as well right. Yeah Amazon is taking over and I know we give them a lot of business. Yeah.

Personally so. So take this as a great example. Then in the retail space they say they used groceries as a perfect example where homes are starting to be designed with these sort of receiving boxes or delivery boxes but because you know in the past if you had one of those so that I guess that's the idea of a similar idea and that makes more sense to me rather than having a key to the home. Yeah you have some sort of delivery space or box where things can get dropped off into. Yeah. And so homes are being built with those but now they're being built with those that also control heating and cooling. In case you're getting your groceries delivered.

Yeah. I mean we for example were addicted to the Hello Fresh here's a little plug for him. Hello Fresh. You're welcome. But yeah we get a delivery every single Monday but it comes cold in like a cooler. Yeah. You know but you can't leave it out. But for so long. Yeah. To you store. So that would be wonderful to have that sad about it every once in a while.

Yeah. Arrives while we're both at work then. Yeah it's just sitting out there now. Yeah. They usually package it pretty well but it would be more comforting to know yeah that you know the lobsters that we ordered for an anniversary dinner or something like that. Ah right. You know in a protected space. We're not stealing our lobster.

Well and you know coming into the you know the season you know you hear more and more but just so sad about you know packages going missing. So I think by having that add a feature onto your ham works just a little bit more secluded you know the privacy packages going into a certain compartment. I don't foresee a bad person come in and dig in through the compartment and try to steal items it's just when they're visible to the eye that thinks can go missing unfortunately other changes that they said would impact things would be self-driving cars landing pads for delivery drones.

That'll be the day when you've got a landing pad for a delivery drone in your front yard.

Right. Well we're. I mean it seems just so far fetched. But we're already seeing at shopping centers where they have the plug ups for you know the battery powered cars which to me seems like you know watching the Jetsons you know show theme.

I totally forgot that the Jetsons exists.

Yeah. I love that show. Growing up. But yeah. I mean I could see that eventually being at our home. You know all homes will need the certain stations for charging you know their self-driving cars and yet they talk about drones that's already in some areas right where they had drones delivering packages.

Yeah absolutely well. And I think the thing is you're gonna see some of these changes not necessarily happen in our area right away. They'll start in bigger cities and think about like a condo complex. Yeah or you know big. Yes smart. They're changing this article mentioned they're changing the rooftops of these areas so that the drones can drop selected packages and gas on the rooftop and then someone will come and collect them from the rooftop and take them down.

Well it's saving you know saving time and saving money for everyone. It's another a little change not directly like the features that we're talking about but with all new home neighborhoods that now have a kiosk for the mailboxes. So you know you no longer have an actual mailbox at your home. You must go to a kiosk. But again it boils down to you know save and time save money for the mail distributor so you know we're just we're changing we're needed. When it comes to building homes.

It's fascinating to track all of those things if you need help when it comes to buying or selling a home or you want a home that has a landing pad for a delivery drone. Angie will help you find that home I'm sure.

Somewhere here and I don't know if it is I don't know we have that search feature for you know delivery drone pad.

She'll make the calls and where I'll do my best. Call 9 1 9 5 3 8 64 77 to get in touch with Angie to talk about buying or selling your home here in the Triangle. You can text her at that number as well to ask your questions. 9 1 9 5 3 8 64 77. Again that's 9 1 9 5 3 8 6 4 7 7. Last one real quick here Angie that this article mentioned the feedback that people are going to get. You're gonna be able to give developers and real estate agents important feedback without even knowing it. And that is going to craft how future homes are built. So right now you might have everybody say to you I want a gym and in the home. But if you collect all this data that once people get in the homes and you can actually track how often they use that home gym because it's everything is going to be connected to the Internet and all that data is gonna be pooled together builders are going to say all right. Only 1 percent of people actually use the home gyms that we're building into these houses. So let's make it a less important feature and that might dictate how future homes are built the way that they can customize that kind of thing.

Yeah I mean when it comes to building changing things. I mean whether it's you know building a home or designing cars. I mean it's all about collecting data you know and a lot of times you don't realize what you do or do not like into you actually have lived in the home. I see that with hands all the time. It's you know oh my gosh we realize that are we never use our tub. That's one of the big ones I've seen a lot of people are changing instead of having a Jacuzzi tub. They would prefer a much larger walk in shower. It's just those things that when you are viewing homes you think you want this item. But once you've lived there you realize we never even use that. So yeah. Collecting the data given the feedback will really you know dictate you know what's going to be built in the future and you know what's most important to buyers.

My favorite thing is the big whirlpool tub with a water heater that doesn't have enough hot water to fill the right big toe because that makes a lot of sense right.

It's such a waste. Like we have a whirlpool tub and once in a blue moon like our daughter will beg us to get in it. But we do not like to use it because of waste so much water. I mean it's yeah it's fun to play in the bubbles for a moment but it's such a waste. You have to keep refilling it to keep it warm in. Yeah. Now it isn't even a real hot tub at that point. Yeah exactly. Pretty much. That's a lot of maintenance data. So as you can see there's a lot of different considerations that come into play when you are looking to buy or sell a home. And we would love to be the person to guide you through those steps and to talk through these items you know. Is it important that we have a drone landing pad at our home. But if you are thinking about buying a home and you want to understand the process you know how do I get started. What happens once I go under contract. What do I do to prepare for closing. We can send you a copy of our home buying guide which will walk you through all of those steps and to receive the copy of our home buying guide. You can text the word contract to the phone number 5 5 5 8 8 8. Once again on your smartphone to receive a copy of the home buying guide. Just text the word contract to the phone number 5 5 5 8 8 8.

And what'll happen is you'll get a text right back from us. And then it will have a link. You click on that link and you can view the guide. You can even download the guide to your smartphone to look at it later on.

Again all you have to do is text the word contract to the number 5 5 5 8 8 8. That's the word contract to the number 5 5 5 8 8 8. And you can get that home buying guide from. And Nicole and her team at a ACO Realty. Thanks so much for tuning into the show today. There's still more on the way this is the savvy real tour with antique old

It's time for the mailbag. We want to hear from you

That's he says is a rent to own strategy a bad idea. You see those signs from time to time or

Rent to Own. You might see it on a listing if you're looking to rent an apartment or that kind of thing.

Right. It's you know I don't know. When it comes to the buy side as far as I'm someone looking to actually buy a home I would honestly say that that's not the best case scenario.

The reason being the inventory levels will be very low for you to choose from. Most sellers are not in a position where they can hold onto that one home allow you to rent to own from them. So still carrying the mortgage on that that one hand and then go off and buy another home. So when we're looking in our MLS database there is not a lot of rent own options out there. So your your choices of choosing a home are very slim to none. Also you know about only 5 percent actually make it to closing because what we tend to find that once you're actually qualified and able to buy a home the options are then endless. There's a lot of other homes that you would prefer. Also whenever you make an offer on this Rent to Own Home the ball's more in the seller's court. So the seller more than likely will get top dollar. There's not going to be a lot of negotiation room for you. So it's just not a good scenario and a buyer.

How did this work. I mean you're you're paying rent but as some of that going toward a down payment that.

Yeah. So that's the way it typically works is a percentage will go towards the actual home if you purchase. If you don't purchase you lose all that money. Gotcha.

It's kind of like it's almost like putting a product on layaway and you never complete the payments and you just lost all.

Yeah. Now that's a great analogy there but yeah it's my suggestion. Whenever we have you know buyers I call us that are looking for this rent to own option. We always say hang tight. Let's connect you with the lender. Let's go ahead and focus on what we need to do to get you qualified in and in the position to where you can actually purchase the home because once you're then qualified any of the homes here in MLS will fit your needs. You then have more negotiation power you know you're not limited and restricted to the five available homes that are within your budget within the area. So I don't like the idea of rent to own personally but that's up to you in regards to if you want to you know go down that route. So if you're thinking about buying a home once again I would suggest hang tight into you're actually qualified and you can purchase the home or rent to me is not always the best case scenario. And if you're thinking about purchasing and you want to understand the steps we have the home buying guide which we would love to share with you you can text the word contract to the phone number 5 5 5 8 8 8 and we will shoot that your way. So once again if you want to receive the home buying guide which is the steps from start to finish if you're thinking about buying or selling a home it's a great you know piece of paper to have in your hands just to walk you through those steps.

You can text the word contract to the phone number 5 5 5 8 8 8.

You've been listening to the savvy real tour podcast. I'm Walter store Holt alongside Angie Cole. She's the owner and broker in charge of ACO realty here in the Triangle and if you have questions for Angie we invite you to go online to a call realty dot com. Listen to past podcast episodes on the Web site read the blog and all the great information including the option to find a home right there on the Web site. That's a cool realty dot com and you can also call ante with your questions. 9 1 9 5 7 8 31 28.